


first blood

by dreadwoof



Series: Between They And I [6]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Magic, sibling bonds
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-11-02 02:33:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20592020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreadwoof/pseuds/dreadwoof
Summary: The weight of the clan knife is in her hands, the weight of a life. The consequences of murder are always messy for a Dalish.





	1. Chapter 1

_‘Let them follow for a time, they've realized the ache of not having a place to call theirs. Our hunters will go and set some rules for them. If they want to follow then they keep their distance until a new city rises on the horizon. Our clan will do as we have always done; keep a vigilant eye, and steer swiftly from trouble. Do not interact with the shemlen.’_

The weight of the clan knife is in her hands, slipped in secret by the halla keeper. Her first time with the blade laid bare. Her first kill.

A strong, scarred human, Ferelden runner from the Blight, with a small life and a smaller mind. He had a bone in his beard and a terrible row of teeth that shone like knives in the night.

She moved first. Her legs wrapped around him and he grinned stupidly as she pressed the knife inside his heart and shoved electricity through the metal. His hair charred black, from gold to black, like the pits of his pupils boring into her. Anger and agony made his hold lock around her, making sharp nails cut lines against her skin, as she felt his flesh convulse and burn and melt. His mouth parted but too many sounds beat against her skull. Any pain on her skin, forgotten for later. The smell of boiled metal hung heavy in the air. _Choke on your stupid silver teeth_. With an angry red fist, she drove the knife deeper. Like a large tree cut down by a flash of the skies, the big man staggered in death, then fell slow and hard on his back and she on top of him. The impact of hitting the ground made leftover air escape from his lungs and through already parted, black lips; a thin, shrill sound, like wind howling through a tiny hole inside a hollow ruin. _Made it too ugly, even for the Owl._

And cruel, Miko suddenly shivered, this death was cruel. He had no home and she had no affairs with humans. No orders, just to watch the camp from the trees, the Fereldans so far away from home.

When the wide watery eyes met hers as she crawled away from the dead man, the little doubts vanished. His prey was cowering in front of the tree the beast had slammed her against, her only shield her trembling knees, and moonlight was upon her skin, revealing violet veins, tree roots born of violence. There were bites, circles where his silver teeth pressed on the girl’s pale milky skin, and the thought of this human never feeling the heat of the sun or the tedium of living on society’s edge set something off in Miko’s chest. _Let her go_, _even if it causes more trouble later_. The human trembled terribly the nearer Miko walked to her, whimpering like a mouse, and for a second she couldn't understand why.

“Go home,” she ordered, her voice hoarse and foreign.

“My f-family's,” the girl squeaked and Miko fisted her hands. Stared at the glowing pearls sliding off the torn necklace offered up to her. Reflected by the moonlight, they looked like eyes.

“A beast attacked you,” she tried again. “I killed it. _Go home_.” Then hid her sticky hands behind her back and waited. The pain was returning with vengeance. A fine line of blood burnt and tickled the back of her thigh.

_She will twist the tale. Kill her_.

“_Go!_” she screamed, voice breaking but loud. “GO HOME!”

A sharp whistle of warning rang from up the trees. Fury and shame coursed through the air. Not breaking her stare with the human, her feet obeyed the hunter's call, and began backing away under the dark ceiling of the forest. Everything else went dark too, after that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It wasn't often the Keeper met her alone, in the dead of the night, fresh off murder. Questions needed to be answered, holes in her memory needed to be filled.

A blink, and she found herself by the waters. She was vomiting in the river when the old woman found her, placing a firm hand on her shoulder. The other grasped at her hair and pulled.

"Little fool, at least do it on the grass. You do not want the forest drinking your innards."

She heaved some more, then finally gripped the muddy earth between her fingers and spat on a flower.

“Ir abelas,” she said when she was done, to the petals and to her Keeper.

"Tel'abelas. Face me. Come closer.”

“I smell.”

“That you do. Come.” The slide of her bare wounded flesh made her wince, soundless, for she had care for the sleeping hunters she knew were still up on the branches. If Deshanna was here, maybe the clan was not so far either. She felt phantom eyes on her, and suddenly a burst of freezing water hit her arms, shoulders, and face. She blinked in surprise at the vague silhouette of her elderly Keeper, vision blurred from tightly shut eyes. It was still deep into the night.

“Hush.”

“I said nothing.”

“Your teeth did, chattering away.” A raspy half-hearted laugh that turned to a cough. “These ears have heard too much whining, to unhear. Now tell me, what manner of danger did you put my clan in?”

“The Fereldans,” she muttered, hoping that single word would turn the‌‌ Keeper kind and not against her. Rough and tough wrinkled hands scrubbed her face, wet from tears and blood and mud. _My_ clan, she told her, not _our_. It was common in the clan, to single her out instead of force the blame equally on an entire clan. Better one than everyone. Then it could be the lone criminal punished from both sides and no one needed to take up arms. There’s been too many bloody slaughters, Keeper always said when news of them came, so why not a bloody offering? And she would only be forced out of the clan, and it would be good again. She would get a trial, maybe, a judgement. The Keeper and the humans would decide in the end, but she wondered who else would sit and help them. _Aien_, she thought, _my smart and stupid brother_, and her eyes welled with unwanted tears.

“I'm not hurting you that much, am I?” the old woman asked.

“No.” She heard herself lie, her body crumpling over itself like a sick leaf, wracking from harsh, gasping breaths. “It's not-”

The Keeper put her palms away. The face that met Miko was full of wrinkles and scowls, but shrewd eyes studied her. The vines of Mythal peaked from under them, that strange patron of a justice Miko never quite grasped.

“Measure your breaths,” came the calm demand. “Count the gods, girl, before it’s too late.”

She nodded at the order, lip quivering until she bit it harshly and it bled. Words started to spill out. Explanations, and half-coherent descriptions of what happened, the sight of the silver-toothed man barreling down to the clearing, dragging his porcelain-skinned catch, her necklace and silken gown ripped open. The way he leered and let her run and catch her. Saying the words was easy, but making the heart feel was nothing if not hard.‌‌ The more she spoke the more she remembered, until all she saw and felt was _that ugly grin_ and _red._ _“_You acted against orders and killed a human.” “. . .yes.”

The Keeper she knew was gone. A different Keeper of clan Lavellan, down in the grass with her and gripping on her curling sylvanwood staff, listened until it was enough. When her stuttering started again, the old woman put her hand up. Supporting herself with the wooden staff, she rose and summoned a gust of air that cleaned the mud off herself, then as if she was a second thought stared down at her. “You don’t deserve a healer’s touch. If I cast magic on those burns of yours now, it will just weaken you. You’re no more a child than I am, from tonight. So I won't heal you like one, coming with scratches from play,” Deshanna poked her with the staff, “that pain must stay. Wind it up with herbs, balms, whatever you manage to find. Do not ask your brother for help. Scabs will form and they will itch and prickle you into the night but you will learn to stay calm. The wounds will serve to remind you of your actions have done. And you, little fool, have done something terrible and heavy that remains even in the hearts of dead men, following them far past the Beyond. The fanciful stories of knights in armour are often born through dying breaths and terrible sacrifices. Life cannot be taken lightly, girl. Yes?”

The petals glared at her, violet and blue. “Yes.”

“I saw the scene,” her Keeper's voice lowered, gravelly from age. “Do you have anything else to share with me?”

“No.” A bead of water weighed the flower branches down as it fell.

“Look up, Miko.” She did. “For how long have you had demons in your dreams?”

She froze. Her heart thumped against painful fists. The silver of his teeth flashing white, the singing in the air, the girl's bruises, purple and blue and red veins of electricity. _I did it_. “I didn't. . .”

“You did.”

She stared, searched in those shrewd ancient eyes for an answer, an explanation, another lengthy lesson behind the trick, but found instead chilling pity that served as a cold and hard smack of reality. “The way the talent manifests is almost never how it ends up being,” Deshanna said, and turned to leave.

Miko tried to rise. But pressing her blisters on the cold mud stung. Her eyes were stuck staring somewhere in the distant tree shadows. “My brother almost burnt a forest,” she whispered. “Now he hugs books to sleep every night.” Her hands flexed open. “But almost is a tricky word, Keeper.”

She didn't mean for it to sound like a warning. Any warmth in the old woman's eyes disappeared, and that look was familiar and it said to shut up. “Tomorrow the hunters will call you to their aravel, and you'd be wise to go there,” she said. “Aneth ara, girl.”

She watched the line of dim light the crystal on her staff trailing as she made her leave, swift as Miko knew her to be. A darker in the dark, her silhouette soon faded. Count the gods, her order echoed in the air, carried by the black water of the river, and deathly calm now, Miko wondered why she should.


	3. Chapter 3

The posture she kept up slackened and the girl slumped sideways, head first into the rushing current. It was silent inside the river, an icy overwhelming embrace that soothed and cleaned. Warmth felt evil and bloody and she’d have none of it now. Sobering, Miko submerged one arm then the other. She blew bubbles instead of scream. No demons spoke to her. Her dreams were often just simple seasides with ruins and mystery knights. They had no claws or sharp teeth or dark offerings, though once in a while there were dragons. She never felt a pull to control the setting around her, mold it into a shape of her desire. The only need was trying to translate the books she read into pictures, so she could see Qunari jungles with too many pines, Orlesian courts full of elves picking their noses, and then there were dreams where she was in the courts of Halamshiral, where things felt realest and her brother was taller and smiled more often than not, and she wore real armour, twisting the ear of some fat lord who trespassed. Then there’d be the Provings, where everyone of the clan would gather to watch in a big hall, the goal to unmask the mystery foe who wore pitch black, jam her shield down his throat and press her sword against his sweating temple. Nothing was as tempting as the promise of making those visions into life, and if she had always been a mage, why didn’t any demons ever appear?

Miko made a straight path to the camp’s outskirts. A single tent glowed amid the darkness, still active. It wasn't empty when she ducked inside and laid down into the pillows, sneaking a glance at her own brother holed inside his tower of tomes, the same position where she left him, so much time ago. His lower face hid behind unmarked leatherbound book, head propped on a pillow. It was almost sad, how little he wanted to leave this aravel lately.

He greeted her behind the pages. There were shadows under his eyes. He must not have slept.

She grunted back, reaching over her own, far emptier corner with nuts and fruits and a blanket. Half-burnt books and forest fruit represented the entirety of their belongings, the true hero essentials.

“You must be hungry,” Miko said, lying on her stomach and chewing already.

Aien replied something, blankly. She recounted their food supply, then stared at him. He was reading as much as she was sleeping at the moment, eyes stubbornly set on some sentence, but never moving from it. The pale blues and greens swimming in his gaze, distant. “What?” she asked, scooping some berries. Her brother shifted in his seat, glaring at the pages. “I’m not hungry. I’ve had my fill.”

“No, you didn't have your fill,” she said, more stubborn. Her brows furrowed and she turned to pick up a green apple and then stretched herself to offer it to him. It was only when he recoiled away from her, as if burnt, and met her eyes did she realize. She let the apple drop. Her mouth stretched to a smile, bitter. “Dead bodies don't count, Aien. Unless you’re a ghoul.”  
  
He squirmed deeper into his hole. “Don’t say that.”  
  
“Or it might come true?” Miko tried to laugh, and failed. “This was only a dead man.” _Only._ “It could always be worse.”

She watched Aien’s fingers dig into the leather covers, like a shield. He said, disgusted, “It reeked of blood and my stomach nearly emptied.”

_Mine did_, she thought. And here the murderer was, starving to eat. The juices of the berries rolled red down her lips and it made her disgusted at herself but she was too empty to mind. Fall asleep satisfied and demons do not tempt with sweets, the old cook would say. She had to listen now more than ever, she thought and picked the apple again, rolled it into her brother's book tower. “So it was you Deshanna dragged there.”

He nodded and finally looked up from the cover. “Yes,” he said, meeting her defiant for a brief moment. As if he didn't see any issues.

“You know, sometimes,” she took a breath, “sometimes you don't need to do what she tells you.”

“I'm the First,” her brother replied. “I am her eyes and ears and will, I am hers until she is no more. And then I'm the Keeper.”

She narrowed her eyes at the recital. “What did you do when you went there, watch and gag? What did the old hag's sharp eyes and ears catch?”

Aien, for all the convinction and frustration brewing plainly in his gaze, fell back and reclined on his stack of books. He whispered low, and matter-of-factly, “Magic, first of all. Loose in the air and dangerous, like it could spark anew if we moved wrong. The knife was the source of it, as it shocked at the touch. Keeper had to clear the place,” he paused. “We arrived a while after it happened, so it was fortunate nothing else it off.”

Miko nodded. Without realizing, she lost her fury.

“The corpse was charred and. . . obviously human. Keeper recognized him as one from the Ferelden group following us. There was a pool of steaming blood and,” Aien paused again, swallowing. “Static, around him. Lightning struck twice, once through him, and then near a tree, but the second one might have been made on accident.” “Did that kill him?” Aien frowned. “Though the magic brutal, it was the blade that stopped his heart in the end.”

A solemn quiet fell between them. The stub of the candle was almost gone, the flame as if it knew flickered on and off more uncertainly, fighting hard to catch on to anything in its reach and grow. Miko stared into the desperate little white flame, then orange, then red, then white again, until her eyes strained. “It was just you and her?”

Aien nodded. “And the hunters. Only the ones that first saw.”

“Did they say what happened?”

“Not really,” he said with a sigh. “I imagine they shared everything to Keeper before I arrived. But no, they just muttered about leaving before daybreak. Then fools and kitchen knives, too.”

Miko smiled thinly.

Aien briefly looked at her. “It was one of our own, the knife, it bore the Hearthkeeper's sigil.”

“The cooking one,” she said. _I left the knife lying there stuck in him_. It came rushing back now like an angry river, the food and the guilt. The cricket noises grew louder outside, almost like blades set against eachother, a tell that this night would be seared and stitched into her dreams forever. Her stained fingers lifted to her chest and started tugging at the shirt she wore. _Remains in the hearts of dead men, following them far past the Beyond. _

“I attempted the spell, by the way,” Aien continued, and she was glad for that. He let his book down and there was an air of timid excitement about him as he leant forward. “It worked this time. I saw so _much_, sis. I can't recall now, but if you've asked me I would've told you how the boundary of the Veil felt against my skin, what sound it made, how people looked through it, I. . . I would've told you.” The shadow of a grin was upon him, and rightfully. She knew the sleepless nights he spent stretching his spine over the faded instructions of some old elf on how to detect magical patterns and recognize them. She was there, sprawled in her other corner, blinking at the candle that was much longer and throwing pillows in her half-sleep.

“Then tell me, next time,” she grinned for him. Only wished it happened for any other reason.

Aien went back into his book before she could stop him, but seemed to realize just like her how useless it was to deny rest. She blew the candle out with an unsteady breath, wondering if her dreams would really change now. Would she leave the clan?Would she learn spells, or was it the human cells that awaited her? In the darkness she saw her brother bind the tome back and tighten the leather strap around it, and fall down to his corner, grabbing the green apple only to place it dilligently back in their food corner. She elbowed him sharply for that.

“Ow.”

“Fall asleep bellyful-”

“-and the dreams don't tempt with sweets,” Aien finished. “That could be a lie for all you know.”

She yawned obviously for him, but her hands clutched the pillow tighter. “Do you think if we never saw sweets, that we'd ever dream of them?” she asked. “Can spirits show things you've never seen?”

The candlelight sparked again and died on its own, strength giving out and pulling the tent inside in smoke-scented darkness. It took everything not to leap outside into the river again. “Maybe ask the Keeper,” he answered.

“Moron,” she groaned, but kept it a whisper. “Maybe ask yourself. Once you've slept, if there are any kings or gods or monsters. Keepers that live forever. Templars who prey in the shadows. Deserts, snowmountains, and dwarven cities of fire.”

“I'll tell you,” her brother promised. “And you’ll tell me.” She heard a shuffling of fabric and felt a hand upon her fist. Cooling her knuckles, gentle, sapping the heat from hers. Her brother was quick on his word, seeking sleep, fingers around hers slipping.

When his breathing slowed, she closed her eyes and counted names until dawn.

**Author's Note:**

> listening to Catch Light by Bent Knee, and the intense power of that song reminded me of a story needed to be told! please enjoy 🖤 as well as the entirety of the Joseph album :')


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